


Your Friendly Neighborhood Cyborg

by Zissa



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: F/M, Gen, superhero au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8618815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zissa/pseuds/Zissa
Summary: Superhero AU: Luna City has always been a crime-ridden disaster of city, but it won't stay that way much longer if a certain ragtag gang of heroes has anything to say about it.





	1. Cinder

Cinder stepped out of the bakery and into chaos.

A robot head sailed over the curb and into the bakery's display window in a shower of glass and sparks. Cinder yanked the hood of her jacket up over head to protect herself from any further shrapnel and darted a few yards away, clutching the straps of her backpack more tightly. Car alarms wailed up and down the street, and other bystanders shrieked with each earth-shaking crash. The very concrete under her feet trembled with the force of the battle raging a few hundred feet away. Her breath hitched in her throat, her nose prickling with every inhale of the acrid smoke that billowed from the flaming shell of a car down the street. She'd never seen anything like this up close before. Splashed across front page headlines and scrolling across Adri's TV screen maybe, but she'd never seen _them_ in the flesh.

"Get back!" The man in the black suit with the blue emblem stamped across his chest was doing more yelling than fighting at the moment, dodging strike after strike of the robot's lasers in between shepherding civilians out of the line of fire. "C'mon, guys, get inside, stay away from the windows, and—Ahh!"

Cinder flinched as she watched a shot skim across the man's shoulder and drive into the pavement beyond him with a hiss, leaving behind a scorched, gaping crater. He leapt out of the way of the next one, gritting his teeth and rubbing furiously at the wound.

"Watch it!" The only woman of the infamous trio hollered from where she was wrestling with one of the horde of robots that had swarmed the neighborhood, the red curls that spilled from beneath her hood tangling in the automaton's fingers. Three already lay in mangled heaps of twisted metal and sparking wires, while the woman in the hoodie grappled with another, her fingers digging into the plating of its head as she slammed it into the asphalt over and over again. The man in black and blue distracted the second, and the last of them—an enormous man with brawny arms and gloved fists—effortlessly tossed the third into the nearest brick wall head-first.

Instinct told Cinder to stop gawking and power-walk her way out of the danger zone and all the way home, where she could watch the rest of the fight on YouTube like any other civilized city-dweller would. That was certainly what the stream of people stampeding past her seemed intent on doing, shoving and jostling past her in a frantic stream. But she couldn't seem to tear herself away. Even if the robots themselves—more escapees from the research facility outside of town, if she wasn't mistaken—hadn't fascinated her mechanically-inclined mind, the heroes did.

"I _am_ watching it!" The wounded man shouted back, drawing a silver disc from the utility belt strapped around his waist and chucking it at the nearest robot as he twisted out of its reach. He grinned smugly-if a little tiredly-at the burst of light and smoke that erupted upon contact and his target fell to its knees. The other man let out a snort, his voice a low rumble when it came.

"Don't get cocky, Luna Man."

"Captain. It's _Captain_ Luna! Honestly, Wolf, we've had this discussion how many times?" There was a long-suffering sigh from behind the mask, followed by an even louder snort from Wolf.

"You've read too many comic books." The redhead broke in, grinding out the words between punches. "No one's ever going to call you that."

"Satellite does."

A knowing look passed between Wolf and the redhead over their respective foes, and the redhead smirked. "I'm sure she does."

The Captain's response was lost beneath the thunderous noise of Wolf pounding his opponent into the asphalt. Cinder took a step back, the noise just a little too close for comfort. She glanced at the digital watch embedded in her prosthetic arm's control panel. Adri would notice her absence soon. As tempting as it was to stay, it would be safer to go. In more ways than one.

She turned to go, but a flash of movement in her peripheral vision caught her eye. Cinder's breath caught as a lanky boy with a camera in his hands and a press ID dangling from a lanyard around his neck stepped closer to the fray. A bolt of laser fire cut across the air an inch beyond his nose, but he didn't move, his mouth thinning with determination as he adjusted the lens to get a better shot of the robot in front of him. He was fearless. Another bolt shrieked by, slicing past his ear and sizzling into the brickwork near Cinder's elbow, but still the boy didn't move. Cinder wrinkled her nose. Fearless, or possibly oblivious.

The robot nearest him raised a bulky arm and swung at him, its heavy fist stirring his shaggy black hair as he ducked away, an exhilarated grin stealing across his face as he pressed the shutter. Cinder started to smile, but the grin turned to a gasp as the robot's arm popped up again in a vicious upswing, slamming into the boy and knocking him into the air…and directly at her. He sailed across the gap between them in tangle of flailing limbs and manly yells and slammed into her like a battering ram. They crumpled to the concrete in an undignified heap, his weight crushing Cinder against the sidewalk. She froze, unsure of what exactly she was supposed to do when squashed by an attractive idiot in the middle of a fire fight. He shifted then, starting to blurt out harried apologies, but abruptly halting as a shadow fell across them and the scent of hot metal pricked at Cinder's nose.

The robot had followed them.

The boy squared his shoulders and spread his arms, making himself a bigger target for the glowing muzzle of the laser gun. Cinder's pulse hitched in her chest and suddenly she was moving out of pure panic. She shoved the boy aside and rolled onto her side, pressing a finger to one of the switches at the base of her prosthetic arm and flattened her palm flush against the robot's leg. The air crackled with the sharp buzz of her taser firing. The robot froze, its limbs seizing and rattling against its sides for an instant before it stiffened and toppled over with a tremendous crash.

Cinder sagged away, a heavy breath leaking out of her like air from a deflating balloon. The taser she'd rigged up in her free hours at the machine shop had been originally intended to fend off muggers on her walk to and from school, but apparently, it worked just as well on homicidal robots. Iko would be thrilled.

She realized then that people were staring. Other bystanders huddled along the street in uneasy little clumps, some just pointing and chattering and others drawing phones to record the carnage. The rest of the fight was dying down. Captain Whatever was helping sift survivors out of the rubble while the Wolf and the redhead were dragging what remained of the robots out of the street. All three had stopped to look at the source of crash. And the boy was getting up.

"Hey…um…thanks for that." He smiled a little sheepishly as he dusted off his shirt and picked up his battered camera, but his eyes were sharp as they scanned curiously over her worn jeans and oversized hoodie, coming to rest on her face. Or at least what was visible of it beneath the shadows of her hood. A jolt of panic ran through her and she yanked the hood further down. The last thing she needed was to get dragged into the media circus that surrounded any sort of good Samaritans. Especially ones who could beat up giant robots. The boy's brow furrowed with concern and he lifted both hands as if to show he meant no harm, but Cinder was already turning to sprint off down the nearest alley.

* * *

 

It was quiet when Cinder crept up the musty stairwell to the second floor apartment she shared with Adri and Adri's daughters, Pearl and Peony. As far as she knew, both girls would be away for piano and dance lessons respectively for at least another hour, leaving only Adri to slip past. The muted hum of the TV rose and fell on the other side of the door as Cinder unlocked it and stepped inside, pausing a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light of the single lamp Adri had left on to save electricity while she watched her shows. Cinder was grateful for it tonight. Her pulse had skyrocketed the instant she fled the scene of the battle, her legs trembling with adrenaline as she ran. Her mind raced as the reality of what happened sank in. She had nearly been killed. The boy with the camera had nearly been killed. And her taser had saved them both. The feelings roiling in the pit of her stomach shifted back and forth between giddy exhilaration and the sudden urge to throw up. As jittery as she was, the less Ari saw, the better.

"You're late." Adri called from her position on the couch, clearly struggling to muster up sufficient irritation in her voice without looking away from the screen. Cinder rolled her eyes. It was safe to do so now, with her foster guardian's attention safely focused on anything but Cinder.

"There was a fight on the street. I got delayed." Cinder didn't stop striding towards her room. Adri's gaze flicked over her, her eyes narrowing at the debris ground into her jeans from the fall and the greasy splotches of mud at her ankles from her mad dash through the alley. Cinder swallowed drily, but kept her face neutral. It wasn't as if she'd never come home from the machine shop she worked at in grungy clothes before. As long as Adri didn't pay too much attention to her or to the news, then all would be well. And Adri had never paid Cinder any unnecessary attention. Why should she start now?

"You'd better wash that out. I'm not buying you new jeans."

"What a shock." Cinder murmured as she passed out of Adri's line of sight and into the cramped hallway that branched off the living area and funneled into the trio of bedrooms. Once inside her own—a narrow slot of a room wedged between the bathroom and the more spacious room that Pearl and Peony shared—she sagged against the door. Her eyes fell shut and she released a long, shuddery breath as the last of her waning adrenaline drained away. It was over. She'd gotten away with it.

"Ahem." A tinny computerized voice prodded at Cinder from the alcove by the window. After a few silent seconds, it came again, more forcefully. "A _hem_!"

Cinder cracked one eye open, a faint smile tugging at her lips. "Can I help you, Iko?"

"Is there maybe something you'd like to tell me?" The screen of Cinder's laptop flared to life as she hauled herself to her feet and crossed the room to slump into the window seat turned computer alcove that housed her best friend. Iko's program took up the entire desktop, the background behind the generic feminine silhouette of her avatar glowing a soft, pleased pink. Cinder opened her mouth to reply, but was abruptly cut off. "I can't believe you _did_ that! It _was_ you, wasn't it? I mean, it had to be you, I recognized your hoodie on the video feed, but I just can't believe you did that!" There was a pause. "Why _did_ you do that?"

"Because I didn't want to get vaporized," Cinder said casually, kicking off her muddy shoes and drawing her legs up into the window seat to sit more comfortably. She scrubbed at a smudge of mud on the prosthetic leg with the hem of her sleeve.

"Not that! Though I'm really glad you didn't get vaporized..."The image on the screen wavered in Iko's best imitation of a shudder. Cinder laughed. "But why did you run away after? They're already calling you a hero on the news."

Cinder paused in reaching for the backpack she'd shrugged off a moment earlier and frowned. "What?"

"They're calling you a hero, Cinder," Iko repeated, pulling up a page littered with grainy phone pictures, shaky videos looped to display her brief tussle with the robot over and over, and dozens of posts speculating about the powers of "Luna City's newest guardian." Cinder gaped.

"It happened twenty minutes ago! How did they-"

"Everybody loves a hero." Iko said cheerfully.

"But I'm _not_ a hero." Cinder said, turning her attention back to the backpack a little wistfully. Perhaps if she were, things would be different. The people she'd watched on the street seemed so close. There were inside jokes and dumb nicknames and a comfortable sense of camaraderie that hung around them like a fog. As much as she love Iko, the idea of having a friend who didn't live in a hard drive was appealing. Beyond that, they were helping people. Taking down robots. Bringing down criminals. Saving people. Stopping tragedies, even tragedies like the one that had made her. That was appealing, too.

"But you could be."

"Maybe." Cinder didn't look up from rifling through her bag, her metal fingers catching on the soft fabric of her hoodie. She'd stripped it off on the way home and crammed it in her bag just in case someone recognized it. She tugged it free and tossed it on the bed where she could decide what to do with it later. Her hand finally closed around the dented cardboard of the bakery box and she pulled it into the light. The trip to the bakery was a once a year splurge, a clandestine mission to get at least a taste of a normal life. And if she wanted to actually get a chance to enjoy it before the others got home, she had to enjoy it now.

The cupcake in the box hadn't fared well; most bakeries didn't take super-battles into account when designing their packaging, after all. The once-pristine swirls of rich buttercream icing were now smushed, the delicate lettering over them bleeding into an indistinguishable glob. The box had tilted sometime during the fight and the cake itself had been wedged against the side of the crumpled box, turning into something that more closely resembled a waffle than a cupcake. Cinder shrugged to herself. Either way, it was still a cupcake.

"Wait, wait, wait, don't eat it yet! I have to sing!" Iko cried out. Cinder grinned and popped open the box, lifting the treat out with a flourish for the benefit of Iko's webcam. Iko let out a soft, sympathetic noise at its sorry state, but started her yearly attempt at karaoke anyway.

"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Cinder…"

Cinder leaned back to rest against the wall of her window seat. Adri barely acknowledged her existence most days and she certainly never put out the extra money for petty celebrations, so Cinder threw her own. Her own quiet little party, complete with a cake and a friend to sing…so long as she sang quietly enough to keep Adri from banging on the wall in protest. Cinder let her eyes fall shut and sank her teeth into the cake, savoring the rare sweetness as it rolled over her tongue. "Happy birthday to you!"

"Thanks, Iko," Cinder said around a mouthful of cake. Iko's screen glowed more brightly in acknowledgement.

"You're so welcome. How's the cake?"

"Not bad for all it's been through." She paused thoughtfully, running a thumb over her lips to swipe away her icing mustache, then licking it off. "What did you mean a minute ago? When you said I could be a hero."

"Well, you've already saved one person and beaten up one bad guy, so you've got a little experience. And you've already got a weapon to use, so if you got a costume and a codename, it wouldn't be that hard...right?"

"All I've got is a taser...that only works if I can touch whoever I'm up against. What if I ran into someone with a gun? I'd need more long-range options, plus a really, _really_ good costume to keep Adri off my back in the long term."

"Weelllll..."Cinder wasn't sure how Iko managed to make such a generic voice sound so smug, but somehow she did. "I took the liberty of doing a little research."

The screen shifted again, dozens of images flitting across the screen in quick succession. Design schenatics, uniform design references, self-defense techniques, prosthetic attachments, and others that moved too quickly for Cinder to process or recognize. Ideas sparked in her brain with every new picture and a tiny flame of excitement began to build in her chest. As wild as the thought seemed...it was do-able.

"So, what do you think?" Iko said cautiously. Cinder smiled, glancing out the grimy window and over the smog-blanketed, gray-tinted city that sprawled out in flat, lonely rooftops and jagged, towering skyscrapers as far as she could see. As it was, her future was as bleak as the view outside her window. Another long, bleak year until she aged out of Adri's care followed by an uncerimonious launch into life on her own. If taking to the streets like she had today would give her the same rush...the same purposefulness...that she came away with today, then she would take on the risks. What did she have to lose?

"I think...I think it couldn't hurt to try."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are much appreciated!

**Six Months Ago:**

Whatever Thorne had been expecting of the hacker Levana had been holding hostage, this was not it. He paused, crouching on the windowsill a second longer than he should have while he gawked. The only hackers he had ever met were stubbly-chinned twenty-somethings with thick glasses and potbellies, not…not this. The girl on the other side of the glass was young—eighteen, nineteen, maybe less—and obviously terrified. Her fingers flew over the keyboard in a blur of deft movement while large blue eyes shot nervous glances over her shoulder every few seconds, her wild mane of pale blonde hair gleaming in the cold blue light of the screen in front of her. Her room—no, her _cell_ was dark except for the screen, and most of its contents—a battered cot and a chunky, outdated dresser—were wedged against its single door in a makeshift barricade. Thorne could hear the muffled shouts and ominous pounding of whoever was on the other side of it even over the noise of the bustling street adjacent to the warehouse. He fished a lockpick from one of his utility belt's compartments and began working it into the gap between the two halves of the window. Whether or not this was his hacker, she appeared to be making a final stand. And what was a hero for if not to aid damsels in distress?

The window finally popped open with a metallic groan and the girl at the desk below it jumped, letting out a strangled squeak. Thorne threw up his hands in surrender.

"Easy…I'm not here to hurt you."

The girl blinked, squinting as her eyes adjusted from the brightness of the screen to the shadows that fell over Thorne's body. She bristled ever so slightly at the words, as if she'd heard them before, but from a less genuine source, but kept staring at him all the same.

"Now, I know bursting through your window isn't the best introduction, but I'm Captain—"

"Carswell Thorne," The girl breathed abruptly, the realization seeming to hit her all at once. A bit of the tension ebbed out of her shoulders, but her hands began fidgeting with the unruly blonde curls that spilled over her shoulder.

"Um…yes, actually." Thorne frowned. Though he'd been conversing with the hostage hacker ever since he started his one-man war against Luna City's cartel and the first message with a tip about the cartel's movements appeared on his computer, he had never revealed his name. Not his real one, anyway. The fact that she knew it while he knew nothing about her outside of what she'd told him about being forced into working for the area crime lords put him at a disadvantage. He wasn't used to that. "How did you know about—?"

"I know everything," She said matter-of-factly. A faint blush rose in her freckled cheeks then, and she rushed to correct herself. "Well, at least everything that can be found online. I…" Her voice faltered. "I've had a lot of time on my hands."

"I can see that," Thorne resisted the urge to growl the words as he glanced between the confines of the tiny room and the door that rattled a little more with each strike of the people on the other side of it. It was smaller than most of the closets in the family mansion he'd left behind; he couldn't imagine being locked up here the way she had been. An ominous crack yanked Thorne out of his thoughts just in time to see a splinter of light spill over the carpet, widening inch by inch as the door was pried off its hinges from the outside. The girl let out a shrill gasp and shied away as far as the desk would let her. Thorne couldn't blame her. Anyone who could rip a door apart that way was not someone he wanted to meet. "As charming as your place is, I suggest we continue the rest of our introductions elsewhere. Ready?"

The girl's eyes widened when Thorne held out one hand to her and reached for the grapple-gun strapped to his thigh with the other and her face went pale, as if it was just now dawning on her that the only way out was over the rooftops. She stepped cautiously up onto the desk chair, eying both him and the three-story drop between the windowsill and the alley below uneasily. Thorne stood, too, reaching for her more urgently with every passing second.

"I hate to rush you, gorgeous, but we're about to have company and I get the feeling we really don't want to be here when that happens." He smiled, pouring every ounce of false charm he had into it. Hopefully, that would soothe away at least a little of the suspicion that naturally came with watching a masked man break in through the window. Judging by the commotion at the door, they didn't have much time, but he couldn't leave without her. She was far too valuable. "Trust me. I'm not going to let you fall."

The door smashed open then, caving under the angry mob of henchman on the other side. From there it was a blur, even to Thorne. The girl threw herself at him in a panic, bypassing his outstretched hand to wind thin arms around his neck, and that was all the encouragement he needed. He wrapped an arm tight around her waist and turned to fire the gun into the night, the hook arcing gracefully across the gap between roofs.

"Hold on tight," Thorne said into the girl's hair, since that was really all he could see of her at this angle. She nodded once and then he was stepping into thin air, his heart leaping into his throat as the world fell away beneath them in a dizzying blur of rust-colored brickwork and wet gray asphalt. The alley rushed up to greet them before jerking away as the line snapped taunt and swung them skyward again. Thorne tamped down a groan as they sailed towards the flat runway of the squat apartment building across the way. He hated this part. A full month of practice, and he still wasn't any better at it. Especially not when he had a passenger. Still, it wasn't exactly optional. He thumbed the release over the grapple-gun's trigger, letting the line slither off the reel with a shrill metallic screech so that he could prepare for landing. Well…not so much landing as abruptly stopping.

Thorne had a few seconds to twist his body in mid-air, angling himself to take the brunt of the blow when they plowed into the rooftop. He tucked his shoulder under, rolling them over and over as the force of the fall dissipated. Thorne lay still for a moment while the dust settled, the girl still burrowed against his chest with her fingers digging into the Kevlar of his suit. A few muted yells echoed in the distance, reassuring evidence that they weren't being followed just yet.

"Well…" Thorne finally blew out a sigh and started untangling his arms from the girl's hair. Nothing seemed to be broken or sprained, and he'd managed to actually hit the building he was aiming for. In his book, that was a decent landing. "That went better than the last time I tried it."

She sat up gingerly, skittering off of him as fast as her hair was free from the grip-enhanced fibers of his gloves and scooting a few inches away. Whether she was still scared or just shy, Thorne couldn't say. Not that it mattered much at the moment. He didn't need to be her best friend. All he planned to do was help her get on the next train safely out of town as soon as she passed on whatever she knew of Levana's operation. And how she had managed to find out his name. "Thank you."

"All in a night's work." Thorne flapped a hand dismissively as he sat up, resting his elbows on his knees in as casual a pose as he could muster. "So, do you have a name or should I just keep calling you gorgeous?"

She blushed again, a pretty splash of pink under the map of freckles spattered across her nose and Thorne found himself smiling even beyond the default false charm he used on cute informants. "It's Cress. Cress Darnel."

"Unusual name." The surname sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite pinpoint why. Perhaps someone in his parents' social circles. Cress wrinkled her nose at that.

"No more so than Carswell, "She murmured under her breath. Thorne snorted, partially in surprise that she had commented on it, but mostly in agreement.

"You know, I usually go by Captain Luna when I'm wearing the mask." Thorne tapped the interlocked C and L on his chest. "How exactly did you come by my real name?"

"Cross-indexed probable income required for equipment with suspicious purchases, recently arrived residents, and the physical descriptions from security cam footage. Wasn't too hard." Cress shrugged, absently curling her bare toes into the gravely surface of the roof. Thorne stared.

"Well, that's…impressive." And vaguely horrifying. If she could do it, what was to stop other hackers from doing the same? "I guess that's the kind of skill that brought you to Mayor Blackburn's attention, then?"

"Not…not exactly." Cress bit her lip, sneaking a glance at him out of the corner of her eye as if trying to gauge how she should proceed. "My father works for her at the lab on the west side. The one by the national park?"

Thorne jolted. He'd been trying to get an insider view of that lab for months with no luck. Whatever went on there was better guarded than Fort Knox, which of course meant that it likely tied back to Mayor Levana Blackburn in some way. Nearly everything disreputable in this town did.

"She's been blackmailing him. Using me as leverage to keep him compliant. Finding out that I had valuable skills was just a bonus for her, "Cress went on, her voice trembling a little as it poured out of her. "I've been trying to contact Father through the computer systems there, but even I can't get in. That's why I reached out to you." Her gaze lifted from the spot on the roof she'd been focusing on to meet his, a little reddened, but determined. "I know you want my help to get to Levana, and I'll be happy to give it to you. But I need your help, too."

Thorne blinked. That wasn't the plan. All he'd intended to do was rescue the hacker, take the info, and move on. A sidekick or partner or whatever she was proposing—even as a temporary position—contradicted everything he'd come to Luna City for: solitude. Independence. A chance to get out from under his father's shadow once and for all by doing the exact opposite of everything the old man had ever wanted him to. And yet…Cress was his best shot at cracking open Levana's otherwise airtight operation. Possibly his _only_ shot.

"I get your dad out of wherever Levana's stashing him and you help me take her down," Thorne said slowly, mulling over how they could possibly make the partnership work. A sheltered hacker who jumped at every bump in the night and an inexperienced vigilante who still occasionally fell off buildings. What could possibly go wrong? He held out a hand to shake on it. "Deal?"

"Deal." Cress's much smaller hand slid into his as if it belonged there. Thorne flashed a grin and Cress returned, though hers was a quieter, softer smile than his rogue's smirk. For better or worse, the partnership was struck.

* * *

**Present Day:**

Cress slid the first aid chest off the top shelf of her closet, yelping a little as the desk chair she was balancing on wobbled under its weight. It had been a big investment when she and Thorne bought the monster chest a few months earlier, but it was proving to be well worth it in the long-run. She dragged the chest out into the hall between her bedroom and the apartment's living space, its corners cutting little grooves in the carpet and the contents rattling with each shuffling step, her arms aching by the time she wrangled it into the living room. The apartment across the hall from Thorne's was more space than she'd had in a long time and she adored it through and through...but it did have its disadvantages.

It took a full minute to wrestle the first aid chest up onto her desk and maneuver the childproof latches open. Cress frowned at the neat little slots packed with tubes of ointment. They were running low on butterfly sutures again. She made a mental note to add that to her shopping list.

"Honey, I'm home!" The skylight over the couch slid open with a metallic rasp and Thorne poked his head through the hatch, sounding far too cheerful for a man who looked as if he'd walked through the apocalypse.

"That's at least one thing to be grateful for," Cress said, eying the smudges of soot and streaks of pavement dust dappled across Thorne's face with disdain. "Are you alright?"

"Perfect, as always, my dear Satellite." His brow twitched as though he'd winked beneath the domino mask that curved over his eyes and his cheekbones, but forgotten that the protective lenses blocked Cress from seeing any such attempts. Cress stifled a grin. It wouldn't be the first time. He'd moaned about the impossibility of his trademark winks ever since they finished the first prototype of the new mask she'd designed. But even three months later, he still forgot. "And I brought presents!"

"Presents?" Cress found herself speaking to empty air as Thorne's head and shoulders momentarily disappeared back through the skylight. There was a muted scrape of metal on concrete, a couple of heavy thuds, then Thorne was swinging himself through the hatch with a robot head tucked under his arm.

"Well, really only one present besides the obvious gift of my presence— "He flashed a grin and Cress rolled her eyes as she padded across the carpet to join him on the couch he'd landed on. "—but I thought you'd be interested."

"Definitely." Cress reached out a tentative finger and poked at the smooth steel. The robot's head was surprisingly intact. She'd watched the fight remotely through the city's traffic cam system—it was disgustingly easy to hack into—and between Wolf's claws, Scarlet's fists, and the shock grenades Thorne used, there were more fragments than whole robots once the dust settled. She was relieved that this one at least had survived. A bundle of severed connective wires trailed from the jagged opening at its neck and the glass visual scanner was webbed with cracks, but nothing seemed to be missing or internally damaged. She could work with this. "I might still be able to pull some data from its system." She paused long enough to glance up, her gaze scanning over Thorne until it snagged on the singed patch of fabric at his shoulder. "But we should take care of your shoulder."

"It's just a scratch," Thorne said, lifting his good shoulder in a shrug as Cress rose to retrieve the necessary supplies.

"I saw what happened on the cameras; you definitely need to have it looked at, "Cress said firmly, pursing her lips as she considered the array of possible treatment methods. Her community center first aid classes had fully covered the uses of every item in the average first aid kit, but those uses typically fell under categories like "household accidents" and "minor sports injuries." Figuring out how to translate that into treating a superhero for things like robot laser burns and the occasional gunshot wound was…tricky. Finally, she picked out an armload of old standbys: a half-empty canister of burn-cream from the last time Thorne had crossed someone with a laser rifle, a battered tube of antibiotic ointment that had seen more use than anything else in the kit, alcohol swabs, medical tape, and a thick roll of snowy white guaze. "You'll need to take off your shirt."

There was a scandalized gasp from the couch. "At least buy me dinner first."

Cress ignored him, focusing on laying out the supplies on the couch while Thorne peeled off his mask and carefully tugged his shirt over his head. Or at least, she did her best to ignore him. No amount of practice kept her pulse from skipping a little when his shirt came off, even if it was only for the purpose of patching him up. She stripped a swab out of its packaging and went to work. "So, did you find out anything about the new girl?"

"Nothing so far." Thorne winced at the sting as the swab passed over the patch of blistered flesh on his bicep. "Wolf and Scarlet are more connected to the meta community and neither of them have heard anything about anyone with electric abilities in the area."

"Sorry," Cress winced in solidarity, pulling the swab back until Thorne nodded as a go-ahead. "But she did help you guys win...Maybe we'll have a little extra help next time Levana pulls a stunt like that."

"Maybe," Thorne said, letting a wry chuckle. "We could certainly use it. That's what, the third attack this month?"

"Fourth." Cress swiped a heavy coating of antibiotic over the wound and began wrapping it, her brow creasing a little. Before, they encountered little more than the occasional drug dealer or gun runner. Levana usually kept her underground business ventures somewhat discreet. Now, they were scrambling to keep up with everything from backalley muggings to rampaging robots. "Whatever's going on at the lab, they're stepping up their efforts."

"I know," Thorne said quietly, the levity vanishing from his tone the minute he glanced up at her face. The unspoken worry hung in the air like a fog, both of them pondering the same thought. If things were bad here, what were they like at the lab, where Levana had no upstanding mayoral facade to uphold? Cress tried not to think about that most of the time. Not with her father still hidden behind the lab's well-protected walls. "I'm going to go see Wolf and Scarlet later. Maybe this time we can convince them to join up."

"Hopefully." Cress taped down the final length of guaze and sat back, her work finished. Her gaze wandered to the robot head abandoned on floor by her feet. It was only one indicator of a much larger problem. Luna City was growing steadily worse. And no matter what they did...she wasn't sure if they could save it. Not alone, anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are always appreciated!

Winter pressed herself against the back of the pitch black hall closet, trapped behind a wall of hangars and last season's coats. There were many nooks and crannies large enough for her to hide in scattered through the Artemisia Hotel's penthouse, and she had memorized enough of them in the years since she'd moved in with her stepmother to know that this one was less than ideal for hiding from even mildly determined pursuers. But she had been caught halfway between her suite and the fire escape she had been planning to sneak down when the elevator doors began to open, so it would have to do.

Her pulse throbbed in her ears, her heart galloping in her chest as the noise from outside grew louder. The voices in the foyer were far too close and far too familiar for comfort, while the noise of what was clearly the fight of someone's life made her stomach clench. Though muted by the door between them, she could still pick out the sounds of the scuffle wafting in from the service elevator. Something heavy being unwillingly dragged across the stretch of stone flooring between the elevator and the dimly lit hall that fed into her stepmother's gaping maw of an office. Feet thrashing against the baseboards, nails screeching as they scrabbled desperately for grip on the polished marble, and…the screaming.

Winter shuddered as another shrill, drawn out wail echoed off the walls, burrowing into them like the pervasive scent of smoke that lingered long after the inferno had gone out. These walls writhed with screams sometimes, heaving with the memories of all who had come under Levana's control in that office and never left it. The servants who scrubbed the blood stains from the white marble and kept the wine cellars stocked learned to forget them quickly in order to stay in the mayor's good graces and—more importantly—to try to insure that it was never them being dragged into her office in the dead of night. But Winter could never forget. She _refused_ to let herself forget any of it, from the day of her father's murder to every scream that echoed in the night. They were as deeply etched into her memory as the scars from her own brush with her stepmother's powers were etched into her cheek.

The scream dropped away abruptly, cutting out as if the person in question had suddenly clamped their mouth shut in embarrassment. Winter flinched at the silence; it was far worse than the noise. The silence was another battle lost. Another spark snuffed out. The struggling ceased, replaced by the sound of someone getting to their feet and marching slowly, resolutely down the hall of their own accord. Or at least, what they believed to be their own accord. To anyone who knew better—like Winter—it was obvious that it was now Levana who was in control.

"Oof. All that struggling always kills my biceps. Don't know why she can't pitch in earlier…" An irreverent voice said, punctuated by the sound of two sets of razor-thin stilettos clacking nearer to Winter's closet. Silk brushed against silk, the tell-tale sound of an expensive coat being whisked off. Winter shrunk deeper into the shadows, melting against the wall like so much wallpaper. With luck, the other garments would cover her. They had before, on some of the other occasions that her midnight forays into the city had been interrupted by Levana's employees. But it was still no less terrifying when the closet door flew open and the woman began rifling through the spare hangers for one that wouldn't snag the silk lining of her overcoat.

Winter went still, holding her breath. None of those that stayed in her stepmother's employ long enough to rise within the ranks were good people, but the ones that made it this far were a special brand of nightmare. Regina Hart—Reggie, since no one called her by her given name and lived long enough to repeat the mistake—was one of the worst.

"It makes a point," Sybil Mira, the second and easily the most ruthless of Levana's triad of lieutenants, snapped, her voice already dimming as she started making her way to the office at the end of the hall. Where the others found time to revel in their profession, Sybil was always all business. "There are ears everywhere. And the longer that sort of thing is drawn out, the better it works."

"Hmph. Still murder on the muscles, though," Reggie muttered as she slammed the door shut. Winter blew out the breath she'd been holding and carefully unfolded herself from the tangle of closet contents. It wouldn't be long before Reggie, Sybil, and their latest victim were all safely ensconced in the office and Winter would have her chance. She tried not to think of what would go on in that office in the meantime, but in the cramped darkness of the closet, it was hard not to let her mind wander from one horror to another. Her own experiences with Levana's powers of mind control rushed back in visions of spiders scrambling up her legs in waves to bury her, of flames licking down the walls to devour her just as they had her cousin, of every horrible hallucination that her stepmother had manipulated Winter into seeing the night she received her scars…Winter gave herself a shake, bracing her palms against the closet walls as she concentrated on drawing one breath after the other. She didn't have time for those thoughts tonight.

Both Sybil's and Reggie's footsteps faded, finally muted entirely by the heavy oak doors that barred the entry to Levana's office. Winter slithered out into the hall on silent feet, shooting out the window adjoining the elevator, down the fire escape, and into the alley before anyone noticed her as anything more than another shadow blotted against the side of the building. She was slippery now, like an eel sliding in and out of the fisherman's nets and slipping away unscathed. After nearly a year of learning how to slip by Levana's security unnoticed, she could nearly do it in her sleep. It was a hard-won skill, but it was hers now and it was at least _one_ thing that they could never take from her.

She ghosted in and out of damp back alleys, cutting through private driveways and ducking beneath rusted out fences all under the cover of what passed for night in Luna City. While the sky overhead faded to a smog-riddled black, the streets were never truly dark. Neon signs flashed poison green and candy red over the dim stairwells of the red light district, their faint electrical buzz barely loud enough to be heard over the hysterical laughter and muddled voices that bubbled out from beneath the doors of the bars she passed. Winter kept her head down, her hood up, and did her best to dodge the patches of warmth and light that spilled out onto the sidewalk as the doors opened and closed with the entrance of new patrons. It was the worst route between the penthouse on the top floor of the Artemisia Hotel and the diner three blocks over, but it was the one where she was least likely to be recognized by a member of the local paparazzi or worse, a member of the local high society. As the mayor's stepdaughter, she was nearly as recognizable as her stepmother, but that usually wasn't a problem on these streets. Mostly because no sensible law-abiding citizen would dare brave them. Fortunately, Winter had never been sensible.

It didn't take long to reach the diner. These meetings always had to be brief, from the length of time it took for her to reach their agreed upon location to how long they could spend together. Any more than an hour and Winter ran the risk of Reggie or Sybil or worst of all, Aimery Park, Levana's third lieutenant, being sent to track her down.

A bell jangled overhead as she pushed through the diner's door and paused long enough to spot them at the end of the dining room, tucked into a corner booth by the kitchen where none of the windows were close enough to be dangerous. The room was nearly empty at this time of night, well after the dinner rush and well before the stream of drunks that would filter in for comfort food once the neighboring bars closed. There was no one to see them but the staff and in this part of town, they would claim to see nothing no matter what passed through their doors or happened in their booths. Even clandestine meetings between the stepdaughter of the rumored-to-be metahuman Mayor Blackburn and the man who spearheaded the investigation that had surrounded her since her first term in office.

District Attorney Rikan Otsuki looked nothing like he did on TV—he never did when Winter saw him—his slick suits traded for nondescript street clothes and his air of stern integrity discarded as he sipped at a half-gone milkshake. But his eyes were just as sharp here as they were during his press conferences about the city's leutemosis crisis, locking onto her as soon as she passed through the door and tracking her all the way to his booth. She had expected to find him intimidating when she had first agreed to his plan—a proposal passed along to her via a particularly brave maid—of leaking information about Levana's criminal operation, but she never had. He was too kind a man to be frightening.

"Ms. Blackburn." He rose politely as she drew up in front of the table, the man who sat across from him immediately doing the same. Rikan always brought a plain clothes officer with him when they met, just in case they were discovered and ratted out by one of Levana's many underworld contacts. Sometimes they were seasoned old veterans who didn't bother to hide the gun-shaped bulge visible beneath their jackets, sometimes they were shifty-eyed rookies whose hands never quite seemed to stray too far from it, but more often than not, it was Jacin Clay. Whether that was by accident or by design was hard to say, but Winter still smiled at him long enough to make his ears blush the faintest shade of pink. "I'm glad you could make it."

"As am I," Winter murmured as she settled into the booth across from Rikan. "It was a near thing."

Rikan's brows knitted and his mouth tipped downwards in a concerned frown, but he said nothing. At this point, there was little to be said. Winter thought he had a son somewhere near her age and she spotted glimmers of that paternal instinct struggling with what they did every time they met, but in the end, they both always came back. War of any kind was always fraught with risks. This one, though a bit smaller than most, was no exception.

Winter fished in the pocket of her jacket for this month's flash drive and slid it across the table, hidden beneath her palm until Rikan whisked it away in his own. The diner, like most public places in the crime capital of the Eastern seaboard, had surveillance cameras. Fewer, perhaps, than the nicer restaurants in the next block over, but cameras nonetheless. "She's been difficult to keep track of lately…I don't know if what I have this time will be of help."

"Anything helps right now, Ms. Blackburn," Rikan said grimly. He glanced out the diner's front window at the city's skyline, his eyes fastening to the pinnacle of the Artemisia Hotel. They were too close to get the full effect of the skyscraper's imposing height and elegant black glass spires, but all three of them were familiar enough with the building to know what it stood for and who ran the ever-growing empire that stretched away beneath it. The empire that was quickly outpacing their every effort to halt its progress. "Anything at all."

"I've written out what I could of her comings and goings," Winter said. "Some will line up to her public appearances, but there are others that are unaccounted for. Beyond that, there are audio recordings of…" Her voice faltered as she considered how best to describe what had happened tonight. It had happened more this month than ever before, but that didn't make it any easier to think about. "Of what she does at the penthouse."

"The recruitment?" Jacin asked quietly. Winter's nose wrinkled. It was too civil a word for what Levana did to people. Crawling into someone's mind and stripping away their control, their will…. their everything…until they were nothing more than a shell for her to work through. They went into her office as people and they came out as pawns for her to use however she saw fit. Winter knew some of them turned up later, hauling drug shipments or acting as cannon fodder in the ongoing war between Luna City's criminal elements and its police force, but that most vanished into the lab outside of the city. Either way, those that resurfaced were never the same. It wasn't recruitment; it was murder. She nodded, all the same.

"There has been more of it lately. She's becoming bolder."

"She must be getting closer to whatever she's working towards." Jacin exchanged glances with Rikan and both frowned. Winter couldn't blame them. The fact that Levana was drawing ever closer to her end game while they were nearly as in the dark about what she was doing as when they had first begun to meet was infuriating.

"So it seems. Today's incident on the east side was irregular enough, but if her movements are shifting as well, we may be running out of time." Rikan said. Winter bit her lip. She had seen the reports of the robot attack, too, though most of what she had seen focused on the appearance of a mysterious new vigilante. While it wasn't unusual for odd things to occasionally happen that close to the laboratory, it _was_ unusual for such a large scale attack to occur. At least there had been no fatalities. "I've spoken to the authorities who would intervene should we be able to prove that Levana is a metahuman using her abilities illegally," Winter's heart leapt in her throat and she leaned hopefully forward in her seat. "But they still require more evidence than we have at this time."

Winter deflated, her shoulders drooping with the news as she slumped back against the tattered vinyl of the booth. Perhaps it was too much to hope for, but it felt like they had been chipping away at Levana's walls forever. It had been over year now. Piece by piece, they had collected evidence. Some of it pulled from the police reports that crossed Rikan's desk every day, some of it pulled from Winter's reports as an informant, and all of it piling up in a file as thick as Winter's arm that detailed the many, many things Levana dabbled in. But none of them seemed to be connected. People vanishing from otherwise normal lives, mysterious robots attacking in the streets, unexplainable diseases plaguing the hospitals—all of it with enough hints of Levana's presence to be suspicious, but certainly not enough evidence of it to convict her in any standard court of law. Nor was it enough evidence to push any of the shadowy government agencies that presided over metahuman affairs to come to Luna City's rescue. Winter buried a wild, nearly hysterical laugh in her throat. Not that any of them knew what they would do if they ever _did_ manage to pull together enough evidence to convict her. How exactly did one arrest a woman who could warp minds?

"I know we've already asked a lot of you, but as I said, we are running out of time." Rikkan pushed his glass away to look at her more intensely, the scrape of glass against the tabletop unnaturally loud in the lull of the diner. "If it would be at all possible, I'd like to start meeting every week. If Levana's moving faster, then we should be, as well. It may be our only chance to stop her before she does something drastic."

"We can meet as often as you like," Winter said firmly, already calculating new excuses and new escape routes. She would need to figure out new sources of information, too, if she were to have enough to make weekly meetings worth it.

"If you're sure. The risk is far greater for you than for us."

"I'm sure. As you said…we are running out of time," Winter said, her eyes drifting to the clock hanging over the back of the counter. The hands ticked by, faster and faster until she could feel every turn in her bones. The air buzzed with urgency almost as much there as it did at the penthouse, though the energy itself was different. The penthouse crackled with triumph, her stepmother's sly smiles pervading the atmosphere like the static that prickled through the air before lightning struck. The oxygen in the diner stretched taunt, as tense as the held breath before the hammer comes down. And Winter was caught between the two. She took a deep breath and counted to ten once, twice, three times in an effort to make her pulse stop galloping, but it kept pounding in her chest, its tempo rising like the panic that clawed at her throat.

Perhaps it was just she that was running out of time.


End file.
